A guided visualization and goal-setting exercise from Ashok Gupta's Gupta Programme aimed at people with ME/CFS and related conditions. The speaker leads breathing, imagery of a healthier future (six-month target), instructions to record visions and daily negative thoughts, and distinguishes his approach from CBT by attributing CFS symptoms to 'inappropriate programming of the amygdala.'
Let's do a short exercise now. I'd like you now to just close your eyes and take in a deep breath and breathe out once again. Taking a slow deep breath in and let go. Now I want you to think about all the worries and the negativities about your condition. Think of the negativities that you feel. Now breathe in once again and breathe out all those negativities for the moment. And do a smile as you breathe out. Now imagine you are on a path and the path is right in front of you. It is a bright, beautiful path. And in the near future, along the path, you can see a vision of yourself completely better from CFS with health and happiness. Really imagine now if you could be better in six months time, what you would look like. Imagine you can see a picture or a movie of yourself right in front of you. Now the future you who is fully better from cfs. Just spend a moment now really forming this image. Make it bigger and brighter in front of you now. Make the whole image of yourself fully better. Whether it's a picture or whether it's a video. Make it bigger and brighter. Make the colours brighter, make the sounds bigger and brighter. See what health and happiness has come into this person's life, your life in front of you. Just imagine what you will be doing when you are better, how your life will change if the pictures aren't as bright as you hoped. Really be open to the possibility of having your health back now. Think of all the things you will do with your life when you are better. But let go of the pressures or expectations or achievements. Just focus on the good things, the enjoyable things, the happy things. What will you do when you are better? What will make you really happy? Really see all the pictures and movies of yourself enjoying life with full health and vitality. And realize that all of this is coming your way. And imagine a feeling of thankfulness, of gratefulness for all these good things coming your way in front of you on life's path. Smile. A big smile now. Or if you can't, a fake smile will do. Spend a couple of moments now just thinking about that vision in front of you. Now in a moment, I will ask you to open your eyes. And when you do, hold on to these great visions you saw and write them down on a piece of paper. So now gently bring your mind back to the present moment. Take in another slow, deep breath in and breathe out. And once again take another slow, deep breath in and let go. And now slowly and gently open your eyes. Welcome back. Now some of you may have found that quite tricky. Some of you might have found it easy. Repeat this exercise regularly to help you visualize the future. Think about it this way. If you don't set a direction or a goal, if you don't tell your body and your mind where you want to go, how will you ever move forward? Now pause the DVD here and take a piece of paper and write down what you saw yourself doing. Write them down as positive sentences in the present tense. For instance, I am playing tennis, I am enjoying a holiday, I am going out to dinner with friends, etc. Write down as many sentences as you can. Just smile to yourself that all of this is achievable. Don't worry if you don't believe it fully 100% yet. Just trust that as you see the positive changes, this will spur you on to your commitment. Now think of the date. In exactly six months time from today, write that date on a big piece of paper and put it on your bedroom wall. Now commit to yourself that you will keep going until this date, no matter what, using the techniques in this program, whether you have ups or downs. Then after six months you'll feel good that you gave it 100% and if it didn't work then that's fine, you can return the program, get your money back, or obviously if it did work, then you are better and you can enjoy the rest of your life. From now on, I would like you to keep a record of any negative thoughts until you watch the main retraining sessions. Take a normal diary with say a page view per day and just get everything out of your head and onto paper. Basically any negative thoughts that you have in two categories. The first one is any negative thoughts to do with having CFS and the second one, any negative thoughts not to do with cfs. A lot of my patients find that this can be a very liberating experience. To write all of this noise down, all this noise going on in your head as when you write it down, you are telling your mind that you are aware of the worries that it has and that it has been documented. This will also help later in the recovery sessions because you will be more aware of all your negative thoughts about the condition. Having said this, I want to emphasize to you that this program is very different to CBT or or cognitive behavioural therapy. The model used in CBT is very different to mine and the techniques that they use are also very different. My model is clear that CFS has a distinct biological cause with real physical symptoms caused by inappropriate programming of the amygdala.
